


Death of an Illusion

by pennflinn



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Illusions, Mind Games, Missing Scene, One Shot, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Spider-Man: Far From Home (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26759137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennflinn/pseuds/pennflinn
Summary: Tony finds Peter injured on the train after Peter's fight with Beck. Or, at least, that's what Peter believes.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30





	Death of an Illusion

**Author's Note:**

> Do you ever discover something you wrote a full year ago that you entirely forgot about? That's this fic. I'm really interested in Peter's paranoia in Far From Home and wanted to explore some of those feelings between his first fight with Beck and his last. And, of course, his struggle with the loss of Tony. This is my first Spider-Man fic, so please forgive any errors - it's also been a year since I've seen the movie.
> 
> Enjoy!

“Peter.”

The voice stirred him from the welcome darkness, yanking him back into a world of pain that he didn’t yet recognize as his. He remembered the jolt of the train’s impact that sent him spinning, reeling, a spider with its tenuous web cut and dangling. But then, was that just part of Beck’s illusions? A train was no more or no less real than the scene in the parking lot, and anyway, he’d succumbed to darkness too quickly to distinguish.

He was sure, now, that it was real pain — too raw and splitting to be anything else. But that voice—

“Peter,” it said again.

It had not been long since he’d heard Tony’s voice, but it felt like three lifetimes. It compelled him to open his eyes, to see the proof for himself.

“You’re dead,” he croaked. Even his throat hurt. He’d been hit by a train — why did his throat hurt?

“Hell of a way to greet your friend,” Tony said. He wore the same armor he’d — the last armor he’d worn. But it was undamaged. Repaired, maybe. “ _ You’re _ half-dead, by the looks of it. So there.”

A shaft of light cut across Tony’s face. Outside, unknown countryside zipped past, green. The rumble of the train, its gentle sway, coaxed back more memories. They were alone in this train compartment, as far as Peter could tell, which was a small blessing.

“I watched you die.” Peter struggled to rise from his seat, but he acutely felt a new break in his ribs. Two, maybe three. Something warm trickled down his back, too. May was going to kill him.

“C’mon, kid,” Tony said. “You’ve got to keep up. Don’t you know? None of us  _ heroes  _ ever stays dead.” He scratched idly at his beard, which also looked freshly trimmed. A little less gray than Peter remembered it. “It’s, like, an unspoken rule. However, I’d rather not push it, with your luck. Let’s get you out of here, before you bleed to death. Up and at ‘em.”

Peter tried to rise again but fell back with a gasp. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t move—

“Beck is still out there,” he said desperately. “He’s going to kill my friends. Please, leave me here and go to them. I’m not going to be any help like this.”

“Not a chance,” Tony said. “We do this together. I have your back, kid. So come on.”

“I need help,” Peter admitted, wincing at the tug of the cut in between his shoulderblades.

“You’ve got it,” said Tony, and with his signature half-cocked smile, he extended a hand to Peter.

Peter reached out for it, the unfamiliar warmth of safety, however brief, rushing through him.

And then an iciness submerged his hand as it passed through Tony’s, as if through a ghost.

* * *

Peter snapped awake more suddenly than before, and even more dazed. His whole world appeared to move at a rapid pace, although it was immediately clear that he was no longer on the train. Everything was colder, smelled a stale sort of clean that reminded him of police stations.

And although the faces around him were friendly, accommodating, he was immediately terrified.

Because he’d been all-too-ready to believe in Tony’s return, and because it was another illusion. If not from Beck, then from his own mind. He didn’t know which was worse. But Beck could be stalking him, following his every move—

_ The Netherlands _ , one of the men said cheerfully, and his good-naturedness should have calmed Peter down, but instead it put him more on edge. These people were not real, and Tony was not real, and maybe even this prison cell was not real. The feel of the lock breaking between Peter’s fingers was tangible, but so were his injuries from the train, and he still wasn’t convinced that wasn’t an illusion, too — where did the illusion end, if not with Tony?

And it was Happy’s voice on the phone, and Happy’s face that approached from across the tulip field, and it should have been comforting, but instead it made him flinch away.

“Tell me something only you would know,” Peter commanded, though he heard the shakiness in his own voice.

Happy’s long, embarrassing explanation was too specific to be fabricated, surely. But perhaps Peter was so desperate for something real that he was willing to take that risk. He limped forward and reached for Happy, half expecting the cold ghost sensation to pass through him again. He braced for it, shoulders tensing automatically. He was almost more surprised than relieved when his hands found warmth.

“What happened to you, kid?” Happy said.  _ Kid _ . The word stung. It was what Tony had called him. Or, what his imagined Tony had called him.

“I think I was hit by a train,” Peter mumbled.

“You were  _ what _ ?”

Happy felt so warm, and so real, and the concern in his voice sounded so genuine. Peter’s words came out in a rush.

“Mr. Beck tricked me and threw me in front of a train and I think I passed out for a bit and then Mr. Stark was there and then I was in some kind of Dutch jail and my friends are in danger and—”

“Okay, slow down,” Happy said. “Everything’s okay now. Let’s get you patched up.”

Obligingly, Peter followed, though he clung to Happy’s jacket the whole way like a child. Happy must have guessed Peter needed it for support, which was halfway true — Happy kept his arm firmly around Peter’s shoulders to support him as he limped along — but in reality, Peter’s reason for clinging was far less reasonable. At any moment, the world around him might dissolve again.

* * *

“Happy,” Peter said as they slowly made their way into the jet, “is it possible for people to come back from the dead?”

It took Happy a moment to respond. He guided Peter to a chair and rummaged around for medical supplies.

“Happy?”

“No,” Happy said at last, turning back with antiseptic and a set of needles. He must have felt the warm seeping of blood at the back of Peter’s shirt. “Not in the way you’re thinking.”

He must have been talking about the blip, of course. People were already having debates about whether or not the people affected could be classified as dead for those five years.

A different image came to mind, however: the one that Peter already knew would cause nightmares. A decaying red and gold suit crawling out of the dirt, thirsting for some revenge half-remembered from life. Mindless, fleshless, pitiless.

The sting of the antiseptic was not as bad as the pull of the needle. Peter’s fist balled uselessly at his leg. Happy worked methodically.

“What if it was, though?”

“Hm?” Happy said absently, setting another blood-soaked swab on the table.

“Resurrection’s not that crazy,” Peter said. “If you think about it. Tony said it himself.”

“When was this? Before or after time travel?”

“It was on the train,” Peter said quietly. “He said it on the train.”

“Peter...” Happy said. Forced gentleness in his voice, a patience that was so often absent from his speech.

“I know what you’re going to say,” Peter said.

“What I’m going to say is that if Tony really was on that train with you, he sure wouldn’t have left you there bleeding out on your way to a Dutch jail,” Happy said.

“He’s left me before,” Peter murmured, and he tried to convince himself that the stinging in his eyes was related to the stinging in between his shoulderblades.

The world was closing in around him, crushing, squeezing everything from his core. He was trapped beneath the rubble again, screaming into a void where nobody could hear him, except this time he wasn’t even sure if his reflection in the water was real. How could he pick himself up if he wasn’t even sure if he was real? He couldn’t trust his senses, he couldn’t trust his own brain—

Because if he couldn’t trust anything he saw now, how could he trust anything he’d seen in the past year? What if Tony’s sacrifice had been just another trick, another illusion?

A particularly sharp tug forced a whine from Peter’s throat.

“I thought you had super-strength,” Happy said.

“It still hurts,” Peter said.

Happy accepted the response with a grunt.

Super-strength couldn’t protect you from everything, Peter wanted to tell him. It could help him lift a mountain of rubble, but it couldn’t prevent the rubble from falling, and it couldn’t protect him from the voice now whispering that the mountain was never real.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed, please consider leaving a comment below.
> 
> Much love,
> 
> Penn


End file.
